


And Straight On Til Morning

by ryuutora



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: By some aliens, Graphic Description of Injuries, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Keith gets turned into a vampire, M/M, Minor Hurt Lance, Soul Bond, Vampires, kind of, kind of???
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2019-11-14 14:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18054548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryuutora/pseuds/ryuutora
Summary: What are the chances that Lance and Keith would encounter a group of alien vampires on a planet they're stranded on, while Keith is actively dying, they have no other means of obtaining help, and Lance would be willing to quite literally sell his soul to protect him?Pretty good, apparently.-Or, that time Lance had Keith turned into a vampire without his permission and Keith was really pissed off that Lance 'saved his life' (or whatever). Until he wasn't.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Did you know: the album 'Astoria' by Marianas Trench was released October 23rd 2015 (Keith's birthday)! Did you also know that 'And Straight On Til Morning' is the bridge leading into the final track on the album? Now you do, and also, you can listen to that album and cry with me.
> 
> CW for graphic descriptions of injury and a lot of vomiting.

* * *

 

 

    “Can you explain this to me again, just one more time, for clarification?” Lance asks, a tad overbearing on the innocence. Keith snorts quietly and tries to hide it behind his sleeve.

    Lance elbows him in the ribs, still smiling sweetly at their team leaders standing by the helm of the Atlas navigation system. 

    “Lance, if you paid attention and actually listened when we try to brief you guys on--” Shiro tries.

    “Don’t bother, we’ll fill him in on the way.” Keith elbows him right back.

    Somehow this is commonplace. Coran looks less than impressed, but dismisses them with a wave of his hand. “Very well. We will arrive at our destination within the next thirty doboshes. Go prepare.”

  
  


    “You have  _ got _ to stop playing those stupid games all the time. They’re distracting you from things that are actually important,” Keith reprimands as the human paladins shuffle out of the control room.

    Lance and Hunk have developed the very bad habit of goofing around on their personalized communicators (essentially Punk-brand smartphone) all day, every day. It’s reached a point where Shiro’s threatened to ban toys and electronics from the dinner table, like they’re kids or something. This is Pidge’s fault for churning out little video games like a fucking machine.

    Keith has some on his communicator, too, but he’d never admit to sneaking off to play them in his free time, because then Lance might do something ridiculous like call him a hypocrite.

     It isn’t hypocritical when one person has an addiction and the other has a casual interest. 

    “I resent that,” Hunk argues. “Pidge worked hard on these. The least we could do is show our appreciation by actually using them.”

    “Thank you for defending my honour, Hunk, but Keith’s right. You two are addicts. I should’ve expected this with how attached you were to smartphones back on Earth.”

    They stop by the kitchen to grab some snacks and Hunk whines the whole time about how it’s just a ‘healthy hobby’. By the time they’re entering the armoury, they’ve delved into a whole conversation about brainwashing and other cognition-related stuff that Keith struggles to keep up with.

    “ _ Anyway _ ,” he cuts in when Hunk starts trying to make a point about propaganda in Earth media and in alien media, “the point of Allura’s warning is that the planet we’re going to is massive and the atmosphere might screw with all kinds of signals, so we’ve got to be careful to stick together or we could lose someone for literal  _ days _ if something happens.”

    “Oh, I thought I heard her mention something about interference from atmospheric conditions.” Hunk purses his lips and nods thoughtfully. “Well, that’s not gonna be problem.”

    “Especially if we form Voltron,” Lance interjects. “We’ll definitely be  _ sticking together _ .”

    A surprisingly harmonized groans rises up from the other three in the room, and the arm brace from Pidge’s armour clocks Lance right in the head.

    They lounge around in there and eat the space chips they snagged from the kitchen until they’re summoned to their Lions to begin the descent to the planet.

    Atreuxia B-218, Coran called it. It looms ominously before them, a twisting array of yellows and greens interspersed between the cover of blue-grey cloud formations. Allura was right to warn them of its size. While losing a Voltron Lion on Earth would still be quite the hassle, this giant cautions a whole other story: this place is never-ending. 

   “Damn,” Lance breathes over the shared communication channel.

    “I’ve sent the coordinates to which we’ve been summoned,” Coran informs them cheerfully. 

    They dip down towards the planet, trajectory angled slightly to the right. The surface almost encompasses Keith’s entire field of vision and they aren’t even close to breaking atmosphere. As they approach, what were previously tiny blue patches seem to spread out until they better resemble Earth’s oceans. At a scale like this, they would seem nearly microscopic by comparison, but Keith can tell just looking at them that they truly  _ are _ roughly the size of Earth’s oceans, just dwarfed by the surrounding landmass. 

    “This place is incredible!” Hunk whispers. “Imagine the ecological diversity here?”

    “Can we just stay here for like, a couple weeks, just for research purposes?” Pidge asks, probably directing the question at Shiro.

    Instead, Coran responds, “Well, if I’m being honest, we have extremely little information on this planet outside of some communications with of one of their primary intelligent lifeforms, and of course the knowledge about signal interference. It wouldn’t hurt terribly if we took whatever time we could get to study the planet some.”

    “If, of course, we are able to properly address this distress signal and eliminate the cause,” Allura adds, though she seems just as eager. “We could certainly make an  _ attempt _ , though we must still attend to our other duties.”

    Pidge and Hunk erupt into excited cheering, and Keith feels Black shudder as they enter the atmosphere of Atreuxia B-218. Immediately, a gust of wind rocks his Lion and he grapples with the controls in an attempt to steady him. Clouds race by several thousand metres below them, twisting and breaking apart under the command of the winds. 

    “That was a rough one,” Pidge says, at the same time Lance asks, “Everyone okay?”

    That’s right about the time that shit hits the fan.

    Some kind of ball of swirling purple energy comes flying out from behind the clouds. “What the hell is that?” Lance screeches, as the Lions scatter to avoid being hit.

    “Probably the reason we received a distress signal.” Keith fights against the wind to bring Black back into position.

    “I’d bet anything it’s the Galra. Those guys are always the reason people need help,” Hunk says solemnly.

    Two more purple things shoot into the sky before anyone else can contribute anything, and they find themselves dodging again. “Shiro, Coran, if I get some readings on these things can you identify what they are?” Pidge asks, and there’s some kind of shuffling and banging from her end of the channel, then the rapid clicking of fingers on a keyboard. 

    Her question is met with silence.

    The planet must be screwing with their communications already. At least where the Lions are now they can still hear each other, even if the castleship has gone dark. 

    “I don’t like this,” Pidge mutters.

    “We knew that might happen. No point turning back now. The best advice I can give is don’t get hit by those.” The Black Lion lists sharply to the right. “Let’s go. We’ll see if we can get closer to the surface and sneak up from behind.”

    It’s a solid plan, for the only repercussion being that they’ll go slightly off their intended course. The rest of the paladins follow behind him as they voice their assent, steering away from whatever is launching these weird orb things at them (probably Galra). They aim for a stretch of the planet that is almost entirely a brownish-yellow colour. Probably desert, but Keith has seen enough alien shit to know anything could be down there. If it  _ is _ dessert, it won’t provide ideal cover for them to get the jump on their attackers. 

    Better that than being taken out immediately after entering the atmosphere.

    A pulse of yellow light floods the sky around them, then a second pulse of purple light. Black shudders so hard Keith swears he can hear his own joints creaking. 

    “What  _ is _ that?” Keith asks, but the channel remains entrenched in an unsettling quiet as the purple glows brighter, closer. He whips Black around to look at the source, and a blinding light explodes right in his face as his Lion is flung backwards, then everything outside turns to darkness.

    He’s falling, or hurtling through space, or  _ something _ ; he can’t see that Black is moving, with the impenetrable darkness surrounding them, but he’s being jostled so fiercely his teeth are clacking together in a painful manner. He’s flung to the side with such violence that he swears his spine almost breaks, then lifted upward so the fabric strap holding him in place presses harshly against his hips.

    Then there’s a  _ snap _ and he hits the dashboard so hard he can  _ feel _ his ribs break. He screams in agony, not caring whether anyone on the team is able to hear him or not, and fumbles for something to hold on to, but Black must twist upside-down or something because next thing he knows his back is colliding with the ceiling of the cockpit and then he slams back down and hits  _ the same spot he just broke multiple ribs _ on the headrest of the seat. He clings to that, nails digging into the fabric of the backrest, and tries to fight the urge to vomit with every shallow breath he takes.

    Light floods the cockpit again, just in time for Black to finally collide with the ground. The shock of the impact breaks whatever frail control he had of his stomach and his sick splatters across the floor and the back of the seat. He collapses onto his side and curls up as much as his body will allow him without protesting in pain (or, more pain than he’s already in). 

    The sensation of a quickly-forming bruise creeps along his back and aches in his spine, but it’s nothing next to his ribs, and the awful mounting pressure in everything around them. He grits his teeth and places a hand over the area, immediately regretting the action. It hurts to touch at all. “Fuck,” he whimpers, and then he's vomiting again. 

    He barely has the energy to roll himself away from it, let alone stand, but he has to -- he forces himself to, because he needs to find his team and get back to the castleship ASAP. His body wants him to take deep breaths as he attempts to drag himself to his feet bit by bit. He's wheezing by the time he's on his hands and knees, because he's fighting against his own lungs, trying not to aggravate the broken ribs or any of the bruised tissue (and probably damaged organs) surrounding them. He risks puncturing a lung with every movement and every breath, and then he'd be beyond screwed. 

    After what must be twenty minutes of struggle (it could be more -- Keith wouldn't be surprised if it was an eternity), he's leaning against the wall at the top of the ramp that leads out of the cockpit. It's slanted upwards to the left somewhat, because Black seems to have landed with her head at an angle. He wishes he could go further, open the emergency release and try to go outside. He should get his bearings.  He should figure out where he is, where his teammates are, how close he is to civilization. Maybe the Atlas is visible from here, if they're orbiting low enough, hopefully making an attempt to find their missing paladins. 

    But he's shaking with the effort it took to get himself this far, and though he's never one to give up on something, the churning in his stomach and the sweat running down his face are sending a clear enough message: this is too much, this is more than you can handle, you're too badly injured to push yourself like this. He slides down the wall until he's sat leaning against it, whimpering as a wave of dizziness overtakes him. 

    “Black, are you okay?” There's an unsettling quiet in his mind, in the place a Lion's presence tends to linger. Nothing from Black or Red, not even a nudge from Blue, who has been known on occasion to bother the other paladins in a bid for attention. “Black?” 

    He sighs wetly and rests his head on the cool metal wall. This is bad. Potentially one of the worst situations he's ever been in, and that's counting multiple near-death experiences. Breathing is harder than it should be. 

 

    He wakes up to an unusual, hollow clanging. It takes several seconds for him to orient himself, because there are sparks of pain travelling through his left side that draw his focus before he can even put any thought into what the hell is making that racket. He also doesn't recall falling asleep, which isn't conducive to improving his level of alertness. 

    It doesn't help much that he's curled up in a generally uncomfortable position and has developed an ache in his neck.

    “C’mon! I thought we were friends now!” 

    Keith sits upright so fast he nearly topples altogether sideways. Someone is right outside, just a few steps away, just on the other side of his Lion’s jaw, which is still jammed shut. The metallic noise starts up again -- armour on metal.

    “Seriously!? You better wake up and let me in, this isn’t funny!”  _ Lance _ is outside. 

    He needs to let him in. He needs Lance to take him back to the Atlas. 

    “ _ Keith _ !” Lance starts hitting the Lion again, which he would definitely not appreciate if he woke up. “If he’s in there and he’s hurt I’m going to be  _ so mad _ at you for locking me out!” Apparently he’s back to yelling at Black.

    “I’m--!” Keith starts, but cuts himself off with a gasp as it aggravates the wound on his side. No yelling; got it. Instead, he reaches up to grasp at a groove in the wall and uses it to support himself as he staggers to his feet. Just a couple more steps and he can reach the emergency release. He sucks in a shallow breath, like that will do anything to ease his discomfort, and forces his feet to move, fighting the pull of gravity as affected by the awkward angle of the ramp. It pitches him more into the wall, which should be helpful, considering, but is just disorienting. 

    Finally, when his vision is blurred with exhaustion and his chest is heaving with the effort of breathing-but-not-too-much, he wraps his fingers around the emergency release switch, twists, and pulls. The floor beneath his feet shifts and he careens directly into the wall, then lands on his hands and knees. He vomits again without even realizing it’s happening, but it lessens some of the unusual pressure in his abdomen and for that much he’s grateful. 

    “Hey, woah, what’s wrong?” Lance’s voice says somewhere above him, and a hand comes to rest between his shoulder blades. 

    “I’m--” Keith starts, then has the sense to re-evaluate his situation. “Where is everyone?” he asks, as Lance grabs him under the arms and tries to haul him back to his feet. 

    “Dunno. I saw buildings out this way after Red crashed and thought I’d try to make my way to civilization. Think I broke my ankle or something, and since I can’t get in contact with anyone else, finding the natives looked like my best option. I don’t really know what happened, exactly, but I landed pretty hard and--”

    “You’re rambling.”

    “Hm?”

    “Stop.” Keith’s body wants him to throw up again, but he swallows heavily and leans back into Lance when his weight finally settles on his feet again. 

    “Are you okay?” Lance asks, and Keith evaluates potential outcomes even though he’s too tired for that. 

    No Atlas? No other paladins, no other Lions, no med bay, no cryopods. Lance is indisputably shaken up, favouring one leg, Keith concludes, as he twists around and stumbles out of his grip. He’s pale and wide-eyed as his gaze runs appraisingly over Keith’s body, in a manner that could easily be mistaken for something less platonic in a different, less life-threatening situation. 

    “I got knocked around a bit when I landed. Made me kind of dizzy,” he offers, and clenches his jaw against the pain radiating through his side. “Still kinda dizzy.”

    Lance groans and starts limping back down the ramp, into the lush green forest outside. “What even happened? Did you see that light?”

    “Yeah.”

    “It, like, teleported us or something, I think. It looked like we went through some kind of wormhole and then it dumped us out of the sky.”

    “Probably.”

    “Are we even on the same planet?” Lance gasps, whipping around to stare at Keith. He must notice he’s struggling to balance as he shuffles out of the Lion, because he grabs onto his forearm and helps guide him down the rest of the incline. “Guess we could both probably use a little help walking, eh?”

    Keith only hums his assent and leans into Lance as an arm loops over his shoulders, grateful that Lance is pressed up against his right side rather than his left. “Anyway, I landed up that way somewhere,” he explains, gesturing vaguely into the trees with his free hand. Keith realizes there’s a wake of destruction all around where Black landed -- broken branches and leaves scattered everywhere, trees snapped entirely in half, dirt and mud churned up in a radius several metres around the landing site. They must’ve hit the ground  _ hard _ . “It kinda slopes down into a valley from the point, and out that way,” he points in the opposite direction, “I definitely saw a town or village of some kind. That’s where I was headed when I spotted Black over here.”

    “You try your Punk-phone?” Keith asks, desperate for them not to be out of options besides ‘approach random aliens on random planet and hope they can help us if they don’t decide to kill us first’.

    “What?”

    “Did you try calling anyone on the communicator?”

    “Oh! Yeah, no, there’s no signal at all. We’re completely in the dark here.”

    “Damn.”

    “Damn, indeed.” Somehow Lance doesn’t sound that put out by it. “But whatever, I’m pretty sure these are the same alien people we were supposed to be helping anyway, so they’ll be happy to see the almighty paladins of Voltron, right?”

    It’s a rough start, trying to determine the best method of stumbling through the forest when neither of them can properly support their own weight. But it manages to draw a few soft bouts of laughter from Keith despite the strain that puts on his ribs. “Gimme your -- stop, no, lift up your arm,” he demands through a smile.

    Lance obliges, and Keith tucks his hand under Lance’s armpit, so he can help keep him upright. “Nooo, that tickles!” Lance squeals, jumping nearly clean out of Keith’s arms.

    “Well, forgive me for trying to provide assistance.” Keith rolls his eyes and Lance laughs, loud and cheerful, in spite of their predicament. 

    “Well let  _ me _ do that, and you can grab around my ribs. You’re shorter than me, anyway.”

    “Hell no.”

    “Why not?” He’s still all wrapped around Lance, or maybe Lance is all wrapped around him, and he can feel the words reverberating through Lance’s chest, all the way into his own arm.

    “I’m ticklish, too.”

    Lance just laughs again and they’re back to square one, maneuvering until they’ve both got an awkward grip on the other’s opposite arm, and still both complaining a little bit about being tickled. 

    It leaves Keith’s head tucked against Lance’s shoulder and Lance’s cheek brushing against his hair, but it’s the best they can do if they want to make any progress today, so Keith just prays Lance can’t hear how much he’s fighting for breath, or the little grunts of pain when he moves too quickly or jostles his side. Or that he can’t hear the rapid little rabbit-kicks his heart is giving as it battles all kinds of feelings -- fear, pain, excitement, exhaustion, contentment. He sighs heavily and leans further into Lance as they make their way through a thick patch of yellowish, fern-like plants. 

    “Where do you think everyone else is?” Lance asks, voice careening suddenly into the territory of solemn, if not distraught. Keith is shocked into several long moments of silence, because it’s so unlike him -- so far from the boy he was laughing with not ten minutes ago, he thinks maybe he’s become delirious.

    The lack of response further cements Lance’s concern. He can see it in his eyes when he tilts his head up and finds Lance staring down at him, expectant,  _ fear _ blossoming in the downward curve of his lips and the slant of his eyebrows. “I’m sure they’re okay,” he answers quickly, even though that isn’t the question Lance asked. 

    “We’re not.”

    “We’re…” Keith ducks his head again. They’re not. He definitely is  _ not _ . The fingers of his left hand hover over his injured side and he grimaces. 

    They need to get somewhere they  _ can _ be okay, then they can find their team. Lance doesn’t need him keeling over in the middle of their trek to this city, or village, or whatever place it is they’re headed. He doesn’t need to succumb to some stupid injury obtained in a  _ crash _ , of all things, before he can get Lance reunited with the rest of Voltron.

    Moreover, he needs to keep Lance hopeful, and cheerful, because if he isn’t coping well with this situation then how could  _ anyone _ ? Keith isn’t exactly the ‘morale-boosting’ guy, and if Lance is going to get all tearful and worried about everything, where does that leave them?

    Probably with Keith dead and Lance absolutely miserable, for starters.

    To remedy this, he huffs a short breath out between his teeth and tries, “One time, in one of the group homes I was in, I snuck out with a bunch of other kids in the middle of the night to go to this party. It was in the woods, and we were all prepared and packed, like, compasses and shit, because I dunno, that’s how kids who are barely teenagers tackle a trip into the forest, I guess.”

    He pauses and risks another glance up at Lance, whose gaze is flickering between the forest ahead and Keith draped against his side, something pensive but curious lighting his expression.

    “And then we were barely two blocks away from the house -- which was only about another block before the forest kinda started, where it backed onto a bunch of peoples’ houses. It was some kind of nature reserve. Anyway, we’re only two blocks from the house, and this huge  _ thing _ comes flying out from between two houses. And this group of like, eight teenagers who are in the middle of trying to be quiet and sneaky just--” Keith has to suppress a snicker because, honestly, they were so  _ dumb _ . “We just  _ scattered _ , screaming and dropping shit, and whatever it was came  _ straight for us _ . So there’s booze bottles shattering on the pavement and kids literally screaming and running for their lives, and lights start going on in the houses around us.”

    “How did you get booze if you were teenagers?” Lance asks, because of course that’s the aspect of Keith’s story that catches his attention, and Keith really does laugh so hard he wheezes. 

    “Oh, Lance. Come on.” He clutches his aching ribs and tries to stop himself laughing. “What kind of boring-ass goody-two-shoes life did you live?”

    “Hey!” Lance shrieks, flushing red to the tips of his ears. “I resent that! My goody-two-shoes life was plenty exciting!”

    Keith waves a hand dismissively and reins in his laughter. “I bet. Anyway, so we’re running for our  _ lives _ because a monster is clearly after us, and all these people are gonna catch us out there, or maybe call the cops. Some of the people in that group home weren’t so nice, so if we got caught breaking laws we would’ve been  _ fucked _ . But then this kid, Milaina, she was one of the kids who had been there longest, starts yelling something about, ‘Oh my god, it’s Perseus!’”

    “What the hell is a Perseus?” Lance asks, and Keith shushes him.

    “I’m getting there. None of us had a single clue what the hell Perseus was, or at least most of us didn’t, but we were already running so we took it as a cue to run  _ faster _ . I’ve never seen a group of people cover two blocks that fast, but right outside the gate leading into the yard I tripped and hit the curb. That’s where this came from.” He brushes his bangs aside to show Lance a faint white scar along his hairline. Lance gasps quietly, but doesn’t interrupt. “Turns out, Perseus was a dog. He belonged to some old lady who lived down the block and he liked to escape the yard to find people and other dogs to play with. In the dark, though, he looked like some kind of over-energetic bear barrelling towards us. We visited him all the time after that, even though he got us into a ton of trouble.”

    There’s a gargantuan root protruding from the ground in front of them, and Lance leans heavily into Keith as they attempt to walk over it. “Is there a moral to this story?”

    He has to think on that for a second. Not really, outside of it being hilarious to him in hindsight because -- putting aside the initial terror and the serious injury -- what  _ idiots _ they had been, and what a great bonding moment they shared. Sure, Keith hasn’t seen any of those people in  _ years _ , but for the rest of the time he was in the home there was always someone around who he could make eye contact with and share a bout of laughter, a bond over a secret most of the other kids were either blissfully unaware of or uninvolved in. “Well, I mean, apparently the cops showed up to the party and a bunch of people got taken into custody and fined. So even though I got a concussion and nearly pissed my pants because a dog scared me, I didn’t go to juvie. So I guess everything happens for a reason?”

    “Lame,” Lance complains, even though he’s smirking. There’s no walking over this dumb root, so Keith drags them both down to sit so they at least make an attempt at crawling over it. He lets go of Lance long enough to bum-scoot his way to the other side, then reaches for his hand and helps him do the same.

    “Whatever. I thought it was funny.”

    “These trees are ridiculous. Like, do your roots  _ really _ need to be this big? What are you trying to compensate for?” Lance bitches, tenderly lifting his foot into the air so it doesn’t get jostled around too much. “Quiznak, this hurts.”

_ Ugh, tell me about it, _ Keith wants to say, but doesn’t.

    Several minutes of whining and shuffling later, they both roll off the other side of the root and lie in the undergrowth, panting. “It’s like the size of a car. That’s just abnormal,” Lance wheezes.

    Keith just huffs a laugh and tries to push himself to his feet, but his arms give out under his weight. He groans when his back hits the ground, fighting a wave of nausea.

    “Not that hard, Samurai. Gravity is barely stronger here than on Earth.” Lance’s hands slip under his arms and he braces his own on Lance’s shoulders as he’s lifted to his feet once again. Once he’s upright, he flips Lance off.

    “Classy.” Lance snorts, as they get themselves situated to start walking again.

    “I try.”

    “You wanna hear about my fashion show disaster?” Lance asks.

    “Fashion show? You were--?”

    “I should be more specific,” Lance interrupts, sounding absolutely delighted. “Family fashion show. With my siblings, on laundry day.”

    “Oh, god.”

    “We added karaoke as a bonus competition.”

    “Oh,  _ god _ .”

    As they walk, Keith can feel the exhaustion creeping in again, but he does his damnedest to ignore it. Lance starts up with his story about the heaps and heaps of laundry they had to fold because they didn’t have time the weekend before, and ‘honestly, how much clothes can one family own?’.

    “I mean, to be fair, what eight-year-old boy understands the intended purpose of a  _ bra _ ? I thought boobs just  _ did that _ !”

    “Wait, you--” Keith stops to suck in a breath because he doesn’t like how reedy his voice sounds. “What did you think they were for?”

    “I-I dunno!” Lance is blushing again. “I mean, I knew they were for girls, but I didn’t see  _ why _ they had to be for just girls, and I thought, y’know, what a cool hat! It’s all colourful and pretty and it matches the rest of my superhero costume. Which, trusting you won’t judge me, included socks on my hands and underwear over my pants.”

    “...I’m judging you.”

    “I was  _ eight _ !” Lance screeches, looking half a second from collapsing under the weight of embarrassment. 

    “And you wore your mom’s bra on your head! I’m allowed to laugh at that.” Keith’s legs are starting to protest every step, but he grits his teeth and powers on, because they’ve got to be close, it’s been almost an hour now (or maybe longer, it’s hard to tell). They can make it to this town, and the aliens, and get some help, and  _ then _ they can get the rest of their team and everything will be okay.

    “It wasn’t my mom’s,” Lance whispers solemnly.

    “What?”

    “It was … abuelita’s,” he admits, looking pointedly away from Keith.

    And even though Keith’s legs are shaking with exertion and his blood is roaring in his ears, sweat dripping steadily down his chin -- even though it’s been getting harder to breathe with every passing minute, Keith throws his head back and  _ laughs _ .

    He feels like puking again by the time he’s stopped, but Lance is grinning like a madman, apparently over his humiliation, and the arm around his shoulders squeezes momentarily tighter. “Glad you enjoy my suffering,” he says, light and airy, and Keith smiles back. 

    “There was also that time we started a band, except the only instruments we had were Veronica’s ukulele that was  _ super _ busted and probably went through like, a thousand thrift stores before she ever bought it, and Marco’s plastic drum set from Christmas when he was five. Also, none of us could sing, so we took turns trying to sing and improvised the rest of our instruments from random stuff around the house.”

    Lance laughs fondly to himself, shoulders shaking. “Mama got so mad when she caught us smashing the expensive non-stick frying pans together.”

    “Your family sounds pretty cool,” Keith says, overtly aware of the feeble breathiness of his voice. 

    There’s shifting under his arm and they veer towards a tree. “Ah,  _ shit _ ,” Lance hisses. Keith only just manages to lean into him and take his full weight; even then, it’s with immense difficulty that he keeps both of them standing. 

    “You okay?” he whispers as they practically topple into the tree Lance was headed for.

     Lance clenches his jaw and rests an arm against the trunk, shaking his head. Keith sighs heavily, leaning against it, too, slipping towards the ground quite a ways before remembering he probably won’t get up again if he sits down now. “Hurts like hell.”

    “We can’t take a break, Lance.” Lance finally opens his eyes, head tilting down towards him, and he can all but feel the  _ look _ he’s getting. “We’ve gotta get you to--”

    “What’s wrong?”

    “What?”

    Seemingly forgetting all about his injured ankle (he doesn’t, though; Keith can see the crease in his forehead as he suppresses a wince), Lance crowds into his space and lifts Keith back upright. Keith barely suppresses a gag as the taut feeling in his abdomen is amplified. “You look awful. What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Are you sick? Are Galra allergic to something on this planet and you’re having some kind of reaction?”

    “I’m not--” Keith tries, but Lance is already checking him over, pulling at the skin under his eyes to check them, feeling his pulse (god, he can probably feel how stringy and frantic it’s become), tugging at his chestplate like he intends to remove it and--

    “Stop,” Keith says, but it’s barely audible. 

    One clasp undone, the other pinched between his fingers, Lance glares at him. “You look like you’re about to collapse.  _ What. Happened?” _

    He tries to formulate a response. Tries to work through the fog to manufacture a feasible lie -- yes, he’s having an allergic reaction to the air, that’s why he’s sweaty and pale and nauseated. His body has other plans, and as the second clasp on his armour pops open, a wave of relief washes over him as some pressure disappears, then--

    Lance barely has the sense to move out of the way when he curls in on himself and vomits,  _ again _ , clutching at his own upper arms like he needs to hold himself together. Some of it definitely splashes up onto their boots and shin guards, but that doesn’t deter him from sidling up to him to rub his back. Keith has to grab onto him for support when he retches again, but by the time that’s over his knees give out and he practically drags Lance down with him. 

    Worse than the usual horrible taste of vomit, his mouth is assaulted by some kind of bitter, coppery taste and he spits several times in an attempt to get rid of it. Never mind the fact he’s practically kneeling in his own sick -- this is the literal worst he’s felt in his  _ life _ . And that’s saying something, considering the state of his childhood. 

    “Keith,” Lance says somewhere above him, soft and almost sad. There’s a hand on his lower back, where his armour isn’t, rubbing gentle circles, and Lance is pressed almost bodily against him as he trembles with the effort of  _ not _ just keeling over here and now.

    It looks like he just threw up coffee grounds and a tiny bit of bile. He stares at it in confusion for several long seconds before understanding dawns on him. This isn’t a time to laugh. It really isn’t. As it stands, he barely has the  _ energy _ to laugh anymore, but a hoarse chuckle leaves him anyway. Lance tenses beside him, then an arm loops under his chest and forces him to sit up. “Keith?” he says again, tentative.

    “It’s blood,” Keith explains. He wipes at his mouth with his gloved hand, sucking in a shallow breath as he tries not to let it get to him. He turns his head to look at Lance, who is much closer than he anticipated, face barely centimetres from his own -- solemn and pained. Keith can read the fear in his eyes with ease. 

    “Yeah, it is.” Lance’s grip on his waist tightens as his gaze flickers briefly down to the puddle of blood and bile beside them. “Where are you hurt?”

    Keith just sighs, as much as he can, and starts the process of attempting to maneuver his chestplate over his head, which proves too insurmountable a task. Lance ends up taking it off for him, then the braces on his arms. He grabs his hand to stop him undoing the zipper on the back of his flight suit. “I dunno how bad it is,” he says when Lance questions him. “I dunno-- I think you should just go to the town you saw, and find everyone else, and then you can worry about me.”

    “Nah,” Lance says, shaking his hand off. “We’re gonna deal with this now, and worry about everyone else later.”

    “Lance…”

    Lance brushes his hair aside and undoes the zipper anyway. Keith is  _ scared _ . He’s scared and he’s so out of it he’s struggling to pinpoint a single reason  _ why _ . He’s scared because he doesn’t yet know the extent of his injuries. He’s scared to find out. He’s scared of Lance’s reaction. He’s scared of dying here, on this unfamiliar planet. He’s scared of what lies ahead, further into the forest. Of the aliens here, and whose side they’re on. Of the Galra who did this to them.

    He’s  _ terrified _ of what might happen if he dies here, and Lance is left alone.

    His feet have gone numb because he’s been sitting on them, but he can’t find it in himself to shift into a more comfortable position. Lance helps him slide the flight suit off his arms, and he doesn’t look down, just holds onto Lance’s shoulder and squeezes his eyes shut as Lance plays the role of doctor.

    Fingers trail over the injury on his side and he fights the urge to be sick when a bolt of pain shoots through him. “Stop.”

    Lance inhales sharply and Keith can feel him go rigid. “I’m not gonna yell.”

    “...What?”

    “I’m not gonna yell,” Lance says again, voice low. “But I want to. What the  _ fuck _ , Keith?”

    Keith caves and looks down to where a significant amount of skin on his side is marred by purple and black bruising. More prominently, the majority of the area is shiny, reddish, and looks like it’s been stretched tight by inexplicable swelling. It doesn’t do quite enough to hide the dent and subsequent protrusion where one of his ribs cracked and twisted outwards. “Oh.”

    “Why didn’t you  _ say _ something? We could’ve moved faster. I definitely wouldn’t have made you walk all this way.  _ Jesus _ .”

    “I’ll be fine,” he insists, but even as the words leave his mouth he knows he isn’t going anywhere, definitely isn’t moving beyond this spot anytime soon. Not unless Lance carries him the rest of the way to their intended destination. “I told you, just … just keep moving.”

    Lance’s face crumbles, and Keith is shocked to see his eyes shining with tears. “You’re such an asshole,  _ god _ , I … I don’t mean that, no, I’m--” He’s more shocked when Lance starts actually crying, arms slipping completely around his waist to draw him into a hug. He can feel that Lance is careful not to put pressure where he’s hurt. Tentatively, he wraps his own arms around Lance and hugs back.

    “I’m sorry,” he breathes, and Lance just sobs into his shoulder. 

    “I’m not leaving you here,” Lance says firmly after some time, sniffling and leaning back to rub his eyes. It takes several long moments for him to compose himself, and the evidence of his tears remains obvious in his puffy, red eyes and the tracks carved through the dirt on his cheeks. “I’m not--  _ ugh _ , you’re so  _ dense _ !” He groans in frustration and scrubs his hands over his face. 

    Then he’s moving upwards, forced back to his feet, and Lance is curling an arm around his upper torso -- for a moment the thought returns to him that he’s  _ ticklish _ , oh  _ no _ , but he’s too tired to even react. The exhaustion seems to have seeped into his bones. There’s nothing left for him to function with, and his feet drag hopelessly across the forest floor when every attempt to move his legs fails. “Lance.” He can’t honestly tell if that was audible or not. 

    “C’mon, you got this.” There’s a pained noise close by his ear. It occurs to him maybe Lance is neglecting his own injury in his efforts to help him, but the encroaching darkness that comes with allowing the exhaustion to overtake him lulls him back out of the thought.

 

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Keith, through the power of miscommunication, is turned into a vampire (but maybe that's for the best, since the alternative is death).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I know I never update but that's bc I have like 10 other fics going on rn. See my profile for details. I keep starting new things lol

* * *

 

 

    Lance can pinpoint the exact moment Keith loses the fight against gravity. His eyes slip closed, and before Lance can voice his concern, they’re toppling over into the underbrush, the sudden dead weight dragging him right down alongside the Black paladin.

    “No, no, no, no, _no_ ,” he cries as they hit the ground. This is _not_ how they go out. This isn’t _fair_.

    “Why are you so fucking _heavy_?” Lance complains, trying to contain his panic as he struggles to lift Keith up again. Keith only grunts to voice his discontent at being moved. “Hey, you gotta put some effort in, too. You are _not_ allowed to die in the middle of the woods on some weird alien planet.”

    Keith doesn't respond, because of course he doesn't, and Lance needs to think fast here. The pieces of Keith's armour he removed are still on the ground nearby. The chest armour won't be big enough on it's own for Keith to fit on if he wants to make some sort of makeshift sled to drag him through the stupid forest on -- and it's looking like that's what needs to be done.

    He's quick to remove his own chest armour and he uses the clips at the bottom of both his and Keith's to secure them together. The pauldrons detach and he clips the edges of the arm openings together where they meet. It's flimsy, maybe, but he needs something to transport Keith on while he gets them out of this mess.

    His belt is going to have to suffice as a handle, although the way it loops through the arm hole means the ‘sled’ is going to be a little lopsided. He gives it an experimental tug and shrugs because fuck it, that’s good enough -- they have places to be.

    “Okay, buddy, let’s get going,” he says to an altogether unresponsive Keith, hooking his hands under his armpits and dragging him over onto their combined chest plates. The size actually isn’t terrible; his legs are mostly hanging off the edge but once Lance undoes Keith’s belt and loops it around the carrier he’s made to hold him in place, he seems secure enough.

    Now the real challenge is going to be navigating through this stupid goddamn forest without getting stuck somewhere. The massive plants with their ridiculous roots and leaves and vines are going to make that tremendously difficult, but he braces himself and trudges forward, focusing on the sound of Keith’s laboured breathing rather than the throbbing ache every time he puts weight on his foot as a means of convincing himself to keep moving.

    

  


    Civilization happens suddenly. One moment, Lance is shielding his face from the sharp branches and leaves of some godforsaken alien shrub, the next he’s standing in a patch of sunlight, a mud-brown wall rising on either side of him and a clearing up ahead.

    The aliens in this village (and that’s almost all it is -- a sad little village with dirt-and-straw huts) don’t make much of a fuss about an intruder. A couple of the stout humanoid creatures gaze up at him with multi-coloured eyes before shrugging and returning to their work, like two giant aliens trotting past is par for the course.

    Maybe it is.

    Maybe these people are nice enough that they’ll be willing to lend him a hand.

    “Excuse me,” he says to a pink-ish alien who’s tending to a fire in front of the nearest hut.

    Before he can say anything else, the alien nods and pats his knee. _“Upyr,”_ it says, almost cheerfully. It grins up at Lance with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.

    “Um. Sorry, I don’t know--”

    “For that one.” It points at Keith, pale as death, barely breathing, a trickle of blood running down his chin.

    “I need to help him,” Lance tries to explain. The alien interrupts again, waving its hand dismissively as its long, pointed ears flick upright.

    “Teneroth, Arc-kaleel!”

    Lance is about to ask what that means when two more aliens skid to a halt by his side.

    “Teneroth,” says the yellow one, taking hold of the handle on Lance’s makeshift stretcher.

    “Arc-kaleel.” The blue one runs it’s hands over Keith’s face and chest, then stops at the spot he’s injured.

    “Yours?” they ask in unison.

    “Mine -- my what?” But the aliens are already moving, dragging Keith away faster than Lance thinks their little legs should be able to move. “Um, sure, yeah, he’s my friend and stuff. Where are you taking him?” he demands, sprinting to keep up. His ankle hurts something fierce. He’ll be grateful for the chance to sit and rest, if it ever comes.

    Arc-kaleel -- or, who he assumes is named Arc-kaleel -- gestures broadly at Keith, rolling his eyes. “ _Upyr._ This one is yours. We will fix him for you.”

    “Um, okay.” Well, that is what he wanted, but he’s not sure what the hell these people can do for him. Keith needs a hospital, at the _very_ least. If it were up to Lance, they’d put Keith in a cryopod.

    There’s no hope for either of those things here.

    Teneroth and Arc-kaleel lead him down, into some kind of tunnel. There are torches burning a greenish-yellow all along the walls as they make their descent, through corridors and caverns winding down, down, until it feels like Lance’s ears will pop. He wants to ask again where in the _heck_ they’re going, but he’s so out of breath from trying to keep up with these impossibly fast aliens that he literally _can’t._

    Teneroth takes a sharp right, into some kind of room carved out of the rock, and stops. He and Arc-kaleel undo the ties keeping Keith on the stretcher and reach under him, clearly not considering that the paladin is several times their size. “Wait, let me--” Lance steps forward but the aliens are already lifting Keith onto a raised slab of rock lined with furs, like he weighs nothing.

    That’s about the time Lance decides he should just sit down and shut up, even though the lack of any kind of medical equipment, or even actual medicine, in this room is deeply concerning and is kind of making him question the motives of these random people he met literally five minutes ago. And knows nothing about, except (maybe) their names.

    Teneroth approaches him where he’s slumped down against the wall beside the bed-thing they put Keith on. “Yours?” he asks, again, a word that seems to come up a lot but that Lance isn’t entirely sure of the intent behind.

    “What do you mean by that?”

    Teneroth tilts his head and blinks pink-and-grey eyes slowly at him. “This one is yours to save?”

    “His name is Keith. And yeah, I … I suppose he is now, huh?” Lance touches his hand to his sweat-soaked forehead. A dull pounding is building up behind his eyes.

    Probably stress.

    Teneroth grabs his other arm and -- for some fucking reason -- starts sniffing him, like a dog. “H-hey, what are you doing?” Lance demands, trying to pull his arm away but finding that Teneroth, despite his diminutive stature, is just too strong for him.

    In lieu of a response, the alien gets way too far into his personal bubble and starts sniffing his _throat_ , and Lance is half a second from trying to punt him across the room when he sits back and shakes his head. “Too much.”

    “Too much? Too much what?”

    Teneroth straightens his arm out again and taps the inside of his elbow. “Here,” he says.

    “What’s ‘here’?” Lance demands.

    “For your intended.” He tugs on the pieces of armour Lance is still wearing, telling him to remove them, while Lance tries to decode that information in his head. Whatever they need to help Keith, he supposes he’s game, as long as it works.

    The moment his flight suit is hanging around his waist, Teneroth is holding a small blade to his arm and Lance can’t even protest before he’s bleeding. He’s helped to his feet just in time to see Arc-kaleel draw his bleeding hand away from Keith’s mouth.

    “What the fu-- what are you doing?”

    “Quickly,” Teneroth urges, forcing Lance to limp forward until he’s hovering over Keith, still panicking because really; what the fuck are these guys doing? This is _not_ how medicine works, at all, ever. Blood doesn’t heal people.

    Though, maybe these aliens have magical healing blood.

    How convenient would that be?

    Teneroth and Arc-kaleel both twist his arm until it’s closer to Keith’s face, and Lance watches with a mixture of confusion and horror as his _own_ blood drips past Keith’s lips.

    Several seconds pass. Nothing changes. Lance was hoping whatever magical healing thing these guys were trying to do would actually work, but Keith looks just as close to death as he did a couple minutes ago.

    Arc-kaleel presses a wad of rough fabric to the wound, directing Lance to remove the rest of his armour but keep the flight suit on. He nods dumbly, barely processing the fact that the aliens are also stripping what’s left of Keith’s armour off.

    “So, what’s … what’s going to happen? Is he going to be okay?”

    Arc-kaleel nods and tosses a boot into the nearest corner. “He will die.”

     _“What?!”_ Lance’s throat feels like it’s going to collapse under the surge of panic. The alien doesn’t seem nearly as bothered by the situation as he should be.

    “Once his life functions cease, time will tell if we have succeeded,” he assures, and that’s just _more confusing,_ and Lance literally grabs fistfuls of his hair and tugs until his scalp hurts.

    “You-- wh-- what did you do to him?” he squeaks.

    “We have made him _upyr._ ” Teneroth gestures vaguely at the bed and shrugs. “He is yours. Now he is your _upyr._ Finish removing the obstructions.”

    “Made-- _my…_ my _what?”_

At this, Arc-kaleel and Teneroth exchange a _look_ , like parents trying to decode the behaviours of their toddler, and Lance does not care for that shit at _all._ “Your _upyr,_ ” Arc-kaleel explains slowly, like he really is speaking to a toddler. “Drinks your blood. Life forces intertwined.” To emphasize this point, we weaves the stubby fingers of his own hands together. “Is there a different word you use?”

    Lance is too busy with the ‘blood-drinking’ bit to give much thought to the ‘intertwined life forces’ issue (he’ll unpack that later). “You made … a vampire? You made _Keith,”_ he gesticulates frantically at his teammate, prone on the bed, “a _vampire?”_

    “Do your vampires subsist on the blood of their companions?” Teneroth asks, genuinely curious, but Lance is in the middle of crisis mode and the cultural differences chat is going to have to stay on hold for a while.

    “This isn’t _Twilight!”_ he shrieks, mostly to himself, and now he’s pacing, which is awkward and difficult when he’s only wearing one of his shoes because he was in the middle of undressing.

    “Is that another term for _upyr?”_

    Lance hides his face in his hands and yells.

    What the _fuck_ did he just _do?_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The totally fun and enjoyable process of turning your best friend into an alien-vampire-thing, complete with tons of pain and hurt/comfort.

* * *

 

 

     Lance is busy wondering how the hell he’s going to explain this to everyone when Keith dies.

     It’s quite literally between one breath and the next, wherein Lance exhales slowly in time with Keith and an eerie silence follows. A moment later the realization strikes and his heart drops down to his toes.

     ‘Keith?’ he tries to say, but it takes so long for his voice to remember how to work around the panic that he forgets to speak altogether, rising slowly to his feet to lean over the prone body before him. His hands find their way to Keith’s face somehow, and explore the  _ still _ and the  _ quiet, _ then he’s looking for a pulse that isn’t there and a breath of air he already knows won’t come.

     The first tears are just starting to overflow when Keith inhales sharply and his whole body shudders. Lance jumps nearly a foot in the air. “Jesus!”

     Things don’t exactly improve after that.

     He doesn’t  _ know _ where Teneroth and Arc-kaleel went after his veritable breakdown, but they haven’t been back since and he’s too afraid of getting lost in these tunnels (and by extension losing track of Keith) to go out looking for them. But when Keith starts writhing on the ‘bed’ and  _ whimpering, _ he can’t stop himself from poking his head out the doorway and shouting for them. 

     Nothing happens for several long minutes, then Arc-kaleel appears out of the green-ish light. “What is needed?”

     “Something is wrong with him,” Lance tries to explain, as Arc-kaleel sniffs the air placidly. “He’s … I don’t know, I think he’s in pain or something.”

     “He will be,” Arc-kaleel says, shrugging. “You lack much education on the matter of creating an  _ upyr.  _ This is normal.”

     Lance screws up his face and forces himself to ignore the gasp beside him as Keith convulses suddenly. “He  _ will be _ in pain? What’s that supposed to mean? How do I stop it?”

     Approaching the slab of rock they’ve laid Keith on, Arc-kaleel watches with a kind of casual fascination as Keith’s body contorts with pain again. The noise he makes is enough to break hearts, but Arc-kaleel remains unfazed. “His body is going through all the necessary changes. To accommodate new teeth, new saliva. New genetics. To ensure he cannot consume anything but blood. Everything inside is the sacrifice made to create a better and more powerful self. For his blood to be used to make the next generation of our kind. It will all be very painful, for now. Thankfully the chosen usually remain unconscious for … most of the process.”

     There’s a godawful grating and a  _ snap, _ and even in sleep Keith  _ screams _ , curling in on himself as his fingers grasp at the fabric of the flight suit stretched over his ribs. “His wounds, also, will heal themselves now, and in the future other injuries will heal much more quickly. Though with just as much pain.”

     “What can I do?” Lance asks helplessly.

     “Finish removing your obstructions. Hold him. Comfort him. It doesn’t take away the pain, but often eases the distress caused by such sudden changes.”

     “How do you know?”

     “Teneroth provided comfort for my own change. I was not wholly aware of what was happening to me, but I can remember a soothing presence in the midst of chaos and I knew everything would be alright when I woke. I hardly remember the pain. The comfort is what stays.” Arc-kaleel’s large, eerie eyes grow warm with a smile as his distant gaze travels back to the present. “It is not so bad, after all.”

     Lance nods, eyeing Keith warily. “Provide comfort …  _ how, _ exactly?”

     Arc-kaleel takes Lance’s hand and forces it against Keith’s, curling his fingers over Keith’s cold skin. “Anything will help. It’s your blood in his veins. He will know.”

     And he’s right, Lance realizes, as their new  _ upyr _ friend meanders back out into the tunnels. Keith visibly relaxes, and after a few seconds he actually  _ squeezes _ Lance’s hand. Lance spends a long while scanning his face for any sign of awareness, but only comes up with the occasional noise of discomfort and the furrow of his brow. It must be hours that pass as Keith cuts off circulation to his hand; he can’t bring himself to move because he’s afraid of breaking a spell that he isn’t sure exists. Keith’s mouth twists around a groan and Lance watches a trickle of blood run from his mouth with a vague sense of unease. 

     He gets a glimpse of sharp canines coated in blood as Keith’s eyes shoot open and he rolls onto his stomach, spitting out a foaming mixture of blood and saliva as his chest heaves.  _ “Fuck,” _ he hisses, prying his fingers from Lance’s to press them to his temples.  _ “Ouch.” _

     Lance is speechless, hand still stretched out towards Keith, because … because--

     Keith turns blue eyes on him, squinting through whatever pain he’s in, and Lance’s breath catches in his throat.  _ Blue.  _ He knows that blue. He sees that blue every time he looks in a mirror (and he does that  _ quite often,  _ so he’s  _ quite familiar _ with the colour). It looks different on Keith -- icier, somehow, contrasting with his sweat-soaked black hair. 

     “What happened?” Keith asks, but the words slur together and his arms look ready to give out under him. “Feels like I … like I got run over by a truck.”

     “I’m…” Lance licks his lips and swallows, trying to overcome his sudden inability to function. _“Your…”_ _Eyes,_ he wants to say, but that’s really just the tip of an iceberg Keith is completely oblivious to, so there’s no need to confuse him or make him panic. 

     One of Keith’s hands slips down to rub his jaw, and he grimaces. “My fuckin’  _ gums _ hurt, what the hell?”

     Lance can tell, even through his own shock, that Keith is still totally out of it, and as his fingers dip into his mouth to find the source of the discomfort in his gums, Lance grabs his wrist. “Hey! Don’t do that. You’re okay. You just got hurt in the crash and the meds they gave you have weird side effects.”

     “Crash?” Keith mumbles, blinking sluggishly up at him. 

     “That’d be one of the side effects,” he lies, attempting to coax Keith back into lying down with a hand on his shoulder. “You’re alright, I promise. I’m right here with you.”

     “Where’s here?” Before Lance can answer, he whines lowly and claps both hands over his mouth. “Owww, fuck, what the fuck?” he gasps. 

     Again, Lance just barely prevents him from feeling the fangs. He draws his hands away gently, smiling all the while even though he doesn’t want to. “You’re okay, I swear. It’s just the meds making you think you’re in pain. Just go to sleep, okay? Just go to sleep and they’ll wear off eventually.”

     Keith’s vibrant blue eyes are drooping shut before he’s even finished speaking.

  
  


     He checks the clock on his helmet regularly, mostly out of boredom. Waits for Keith to wake up for another six Earth hours. Then twelve. Then twenty. 

     At some point he falls asleep with Keith’s fingers crushing his forearm as the poor paladin shakes and sweats. He’s tried everything short of crawling into bed beside him as a means of comfort. 

     As it stands, when he wakes, Keith is curled into the fetal position with his forehead pressed to Lance’s cheek, breathing heavily as tremors wrack his body. “I know,” Lance murmurs through the haze of sleep, despite the fact that he can’t possibly have any clue what Keith is going through. He cradles the back of Keith’s head in one hand, threading his fingers through his damp hair, and leans into the touch. Keith sighs, slow and content. 

     He says something, almost unintelligible, in his sleep, and Lance could swear on god it was his name, but Keith doesn’t give any indication of alertness. “I’m here,” he tells him anyway, trying to ignore the way Keith’s skin is fever-hot against his own and his face is pinched tight with agony. “You’re okay.”

     But how okay is  _ okay, _ really, when he’s twisted Keith’s life into a whole new kind of mess? He can’t help but feel guilty about that, even as he caves and lies down on the stone because if Keith is  _ that _ desperate to be near him, how can he deny him that?

     And maybe, a little bit, because he’s  _ weak _ and a little bit desperate, himself.

 


End file.
